Living in Pimlico: area guide to homes, schools and transport

The classical squares and streets of Pimlico were created by Victorian master builder Thomas Cubitt. In this small central London area in the City of Westminster, Cubitt’s contribution is celebrated with a statue at the junction of Denbigh Street and Lupus Street, depicting him at his drawing board.

Cubitt started life as a humble carpenter and became the most powerful developer of his day. He built much of Belgravia before moving on to design Pimlico’s garden squares and the grid of streets off St George’s Drive.

He also developed Kemp Town in Brighton and was such a favourite with Queen Victoria that she and Prince Albert asked him to redesign Osborne House, their residence on the Isle of Wight.

Pimlico is often seen as a cut-price Belgravia but estate agent Sara Lowry at the local branch of Chestertons, says perceptions are changing.

“Pimlico is still a considerably cheaper place to buy a home than Belgravia but thanks to the arrival of new cafés and restaurants and following the regeneration around Victoria station, first-time buyers, families and those looking for a London base, choose Pimlico.”

There is more to Pimlico than the Cubitt-designed streets. Dolphin Square, on the site of Cubitt’s workshop, is a huge Thirties block of 1,250 rental flats built around a three-acre garden.

Dolphin Square has a notorious history, stretching back to the arrest and internment of “Blackshirt” Sir Oswald Mosley and his wife Diana, one of the Mitford sisters, in May 1940 soon after the outbreak of the Second World War; to the time when Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies, at the centre of the Profumo scandal in 1963, were revealed to be tenants; through to the jailing in July this year of fantasist Carl Beech, who sparked a £2.5 million police child abuse investigation, claiming that as a boy he had been taken to Dolphin Square and abused by a gang of prominent men and had witnessed three child murders.

Less known is how the sale of Dolphin Square to American investor Westbrook in 2006 has been put to good use.

Dolphin Living housing association, set up with a £120 million endowment from the sale of Dolphin Square, now has 630 homes with 200 more being built, most available at social rents.

It bought the New Era estate in Hackney where tenants faced eviction following development plans. And with Westminster council, it runs the Westminster Home Ownership Accelerator, which gives local residents up to £54,500 towards the cost of buying a home anywhere in London, following a period renting a subsidised flat, allowing them to save a deposit.

Pimlico is a mile and a half south-west of central London with Victoria and Westminster to the north; Kennington to the east; Nine Elms and Battersea to the south and Belgravia and Chelsea to the west.

The property scene

Pimlico is best known for its garden squares — Eccleston, Warwick and St George’s — and the streets on the Pimlico grid, the roads running off St George’s Drive. Most of the houses in the squares are divided into flats, first-floor homes with access to the balconies above the entrance porches being the most desirable.

The last whole house sold in one of the squares made £8 million three years ago. The most expensive house now for sale is a six-bedroom, 4,700sq ft property in Belgrave Road, priced £4.75 million.

The most expensive flat is a three-bedroom lateral conversion across two buildings in Warwick Square, for £4.5 million. One-bedroom flats in the grid range from £475,000 to £850,000. Price per square foot in the grid is between £1,100 and £1,300 compared to around £1,900 for something similar in Belgravia.

There are spacious red-brick Victorian mansion flats in the triangle formed by Vauxhall Bridge Road and Victoria Street, with a three-bedroom flat in Carlisle Mansions for sale at £2,995,000.

Among new developments in recent years, the former waste transfer site in Gatliff Road has been transformed into Grosvenor Waterside, arranged around a canal.

One-bedroom flats here range from £540,000 to £1.85 million with a shared-ownership flat available for £295,000 for 55 per cent of a home with a market value of £575,000.

The Millbank Estate is a popular council-owned estate of Art Nouveau flats in John Islip Street, behind Tate Britain. Most now owned, they range from studios at £375,000, to £570,000 for a one-bedroom flat and £995,000 for a three-bedroom flat.

New-build homes

Chelsea Barracks is the former barracks in Chelsea Bridge Road developed by Qatari Diar, the property company owned by the Qatari royal family.

It is claimed to be “the most coveted 12.8 acres in the world” and will have 440 new homes, of which 126 will be lower cost, arranged around seven garden squares. The first three of six phases of 64 flats, one mews house, three penthouses and 13 townhouses will be finished later this year. Two-bedroom flats start at £5.25 million. Call 020 7801 3081.

Chimes in Horseferry Road offers 39 one- and two-bedroom flats for the over-60s, in two buildings set around a courtyard. From £1.09 million. Call 020 7980 8700.

Taylor Wimpey’s Ebury Place (eburyplace.com) has 47 one-, two- and three-bedroom flats in an 11-storey block with underground parking in Sutherland Street in the Pimlico grid. Move-in ready two-bedroom flats start at £1,075,000. Sign up before the end of the month and get up to £72,000 towards mortgage costs. Call 020 8023 8862.

A few flats remain at Riverwalk overlooking the Thames at the junction of Vauxhall Bridge and Millbank, from developer Ronson Capital Partners. Two-bedroom flats from £2.85 million; three-bedroom flats from £3.95 million. Call Savills on 020 7409 8756.

First-time buyers

Under the Westminster Home Ownership Accelerator scheme, one-bedroom flats for Westminster residents in Lanhill Road, Maida Vale start at £1,007 a month.

Rental homes

Pimlico is a popular rental area with young professionals, couples and overseas students at Chelsea College of Arts. One-bedroom flats in the Pimlico grid range from £1,408 a month in Alderney Street to £2,275 a month in St George’s Square.

Two-bedroom flats range from £1,746 a month in Churchill Gardens to £3,727 a month in Chapter Street. A two-bedroom Warwick Square Mews house is £2,500 a month, and it’s £12,000 a month for a six-bedroom house in Gloucester Street.

Staying power

Chestertons estate agent Sara Lowry says Pimlico is becoming more of a family area.

Postcode

Pimlico is in the SW1V postcode which stretches up to Victoria station.

Best roads

The garden squares, especially Warwick and Eccleston Squares.

Up and coming

Pimlico’s most affordable homes are on its estates of social housing. Churchill Gardens between Lupus Street and the river has 1,600 homes in 32 medium-rise and low-rise blocks, with six blocks now listed, designed after the Second World War by architects Powell & Moya.

Lillington Gardens off Tachbrook Street is an award-winning development of red-brick medium-rise blocks with spacious balconies designed following a competition by Darbourne & Darke and built between 1961 and 1972.

Russell House between Cambridge and Alderney Streets in the Pimlico grid was built in 1946 in a more traditional Arts & Crafts style.

An unmodernised three-bedroom flat in Lutyens House in Churchill Gardens is available at £425,000.

Travel

Victoria main line station has trains to Gatwick and Brighton. Pimlico Tube is on the Victoria line and Victoria Tube is on the Victoria, District and Circle lines. All stations are in Zone 1 and an annual travelcard costs £1,404.

The No 2 bus goes to Marylebone and the No 36 goes to Queen’s Park, both via Hyde Park Corner and Marble Arch. The No 24 goes to Hampstead via Trafalgar Square and Tottenham Court Road.

Wandsworth council proposes a new pedestrian and cyclist-only bridge from Battersea Power Station to Pimlico. However, the fate of this bridge is uncertain as Pimlico residents aren’t keen and Westminster council backs them.

Council

Westminster council is Conservative-controlled. Band D council tax for 2019/2020 is £753.85.

Shops and restaurants

Pimlico’s main shopping area is south of Victoria station along Wilton Road, Warwick Way and Tachbrook Street where there is market Mondays to Saturdays. In Warwick Way there are branches of Boots, Caffè Nero, Little Waitrose and Tesco Express.

In Wilton Road there is a large Sainsbury’s and Argos and a concentration of places to eat including coffee shop Pimlico Fresh; and branches of Preto, a Brazilian steakhouse; Rosa’s Thai Café and Nando’s; Lorne is a restaurant that cooks “seasonal British and European dishes”; and Tozi in the Park Plaza Hotel in nearby Gillingham Street is a Venetian-inspired restaurant.

In Tachbrook Street Rippon Cheese is an inspiring cheese shop; Mr Cad Photographic describes itself as “an Aladdin’s cave” for photographers; and Retromania is a charity shop specialising in vintage clothing. Cave at the southern end of the street is an artist-led café, shop and hire space.

Grumbles is an old-style bistro which has hardly changed since it opened in 1964 in Churton Street; opposite is Cacio & Pepe, an Italian restaurant; and the Cambridge Street Kitchen is a neighbourhood restaurant in the heart of the Pimlico grid.

The Pimlico Road Design District has a concentration of antiques and interior design shops, cafés and restaurants along Pimlico Road, including top interior designers Nicholas Haslam, Rose Uniacke and Robert Kime. David Linley’s furniture shop Linley is here, too.

Cafés and restaurants include Daylesford Organic; Enoteca Turi; the long-standing French restaurant Le Poule au Pot; and No 11 Pimlico Road, part of a growing chain of all-day restaurants.

Moreton Street is a small shopping street off Lupus Street at the southern end of Pimlico where there is a branch of Pizza Express; a coffee shop, Khallouk & Taylor; antiques shops and couture boutique Ulrich Engler; and Beautiful Knitters is a new yarn shop.

Open space

Eccleston and Warwick Squares are private gardens available only to residents; St George’s Square is open to the public. However, Pimlico is short of open green space although St James’s Park isn’t far.

Leisure and the arts

Tate Britain in Millbank is Pimlico’s cultural gem; a major William Blake exhibition opens today.

There is Curzon cinema in Victoria Street and there are three theatres nearby: the Art Deco Apollo Victoria in Wilton Road; the newly renovated Victoria Palace in Victoria Street, where the hit musical Hamilton is showing; and The Other Palace in Palace Street, a newish theatre run by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

The local council-owned swimming pool is at the Queen Mother Sports Centre in Vauxhall Bridge Road.

There is a choice of state and private schools and for many families being able to walk to one of the two choir schools or high-achieving Westminster School is one of the area’s big attractions.

Primary school

All the state primary schools are judged to be “good” or better by Government’s education watchdog Ofsted.

The “outstanding” primary schools are: Pimlico Primary in Lupus Street; Millbank in Erasmus Street; and St Peter’s Eaton Square CofE in Lower Belgrave Street.

Comprehensive

The “outstanding” comprehensive schools are: Pimlico Academy (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Lupus Street; The Grey Coat Hospital CofE (girls, ages 11 to 18) in Greycoat Place; and Saint Thomas More RC (co-ed, ages 11 to 16) in Cadogan Street in Chelsea. Westminster City (boys, ages 11 to18) in Palace Street is judged to be “good”.

Higher education

Harris Westminster Sixth Form (co-ed, ages 16 to 18) in Tothill Street is judged to be “outstanding”. A new University Technical College, Sir Simon Milton Westminster (co-ed, ages 14 to 18) in Sutherland Street has not yet been inspected by Ofsted.

Private

The two private choir schools provide choirboys for the Catholic cathedral and Westminster Abbey; they are Westminster Cathedral Choir School (boys, ages four to 13) in Ambrosden Avenue and Westminster Abbey Choir School (boys, ages eight to 13) in Deans Yard.

The local private primary and preparatory schools are: Eaton Square (co-ed, ages two to 13) in Eccleston Square; Westminster Under School (boys, ages seven in 13) in Vincent Square; Eaton House (boys, ages three to 11) in Eaton Gate; Garden House (co-ed, ages three to 11) in Turk’s Row; Sussex House (boys, ages eight to 13) in Cadogan Square in Chelsea; and Hill House (co-ed, ages four to 13) in Hans Place in Knightsbridge.

The private secondary and all-through schools are: Francis Holland (girls, ages four to 18) in Graham Terrace in Chelsea; Westminster School (boys, with girls in the sixth form, ages 13 to 18) in Deans Yard in the cathedral precinct; More House RC (girls, 11 to 18) in Pont Street in Chelsea and Eaton Square Upper School, Mayfair (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Piccadilly in the West End.